[This story contains major spoilers from the sixth episode of Paradise, “You Asked for Miracles.”]

Sarah Shahi has been a big Dan Fogelman fan ever since This Is Us.

When Fogelman debuted his beloved NBC family drama back in 2016, he received an email from a fan. Shahi wrote the showrunner to say that she would do any role on the series, she’d even warm up coffee. She was later cast on his short-lived Fox baseball drama Pitch, but they never met. She would go on to other roles on Chicago Fire and The Rookie, lead Netflix’s Sex/Life, and star in films Black Adam and Red White & Royal Blue. It wasn’t until her audition for Paradise, Fogelman’s next mystery series, that they would finally meet.

“He took one look at me and he remembered. He said, ‘Sarah Shahi, you wrote me the kindest email and I’ve been wanting to meet you ever since,'” she recalls now to The Hollywood Reporter.